The Battle of Castillon, 1453: The end of the Hundred Years War

A.H. Burne describes how, 500 years ago at the Battle of Castillon, where the Great Talbot lost his life, the English crown forfeited its 300-year-old dominion over Aquitaine.

 Painting depicting the Battle of Castillon (1453) by the French painter Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). (Galerie des Batailles, Palace of Versailles). John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury is falling from his wounded horse.

Gascony, the south-western province of Old France, owed allegiance to the crown of England for three hundred years, through the reigns of eleven English kings. It was finally lost in 1453, just five centuries ago. It might, indeed, be called The Lost Dominion. How we came to lose it, this article will endeavour to describe.

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